Teacher Excitements

The littlest things in life make a teacher's job AMAZING!! 

Exciting Special Moment:
Yesterday, while I was out of the room doing Bus duty, I nearly bumped into one of my boys who was making a mad dash out of the classroom.
I walked in to find this taped across the counter ...

Mrs. Bermingham Rocks!  

so sweet :)


Exciting Teaching Moment:
We have been learning about Sequencing in reading and writing (see sequence lesson)
In my partner teachers room, during Math class, she told the students that they needed to use words such as first, next, then, etc. to write a story problem. One of the students announced, "We are sequencing!" to which another student added, "Sequencing is the order in which events happen"
SO PROUD!!!!!!

These are the small moments we live for as teachers!

My Life: Award ... and a little about me.

SHOUT OUT to Lana over at For the Love of Teaching for awarding me with the "Blog on Fire" award! Thank you! Her blog is amazing and I have used many of her creative ideas in my own room!

Go and CHECK IT OUT!

With this award, I am supposed to tell 7 facts about myself then pass it on to 7 other amazing bloggers

1. I am a Seventh Day Adventist Christian and love my Lord and Savior. He is my life, my passion, and my reason for living!

2. I live in the gorgeous state of Michigan - grew up in Ohio, but moved back to my parents home state and plan on making this a permanent relocation :) Lake life was meant for me - I don't think I could live without it now!

3. I am a HUGE Green Bay Packer fan - I LOVE football! My husband is a die hard Detroit Lions fan (a house divided) making this upcoming Thanksgiving game EPIC!

4. Teaching is my PASSION! I have always known teaching was for me. In 4th grade, I set up a classroom in my basement and taught my little sister every day after school - best student ever!

5. I am a complete history nerd!! My favorite movies are historically based, my favorite books are historical fiction/nonfiction, I LOVE to dress up in period clothing - its an obsession! On top of my Elementary/Language Arts major I also majored in history. I am currently taking my masters in European Renaissance History - thoughts have wandered to being a history professor in the future, but right now I don't think I could leave my kiddos!

6. I LOVE sports! I still play inter mural soccer and football at my Alma Mater Andrews University each season. I miss my years of touring with my high school and college gymnastic/cheer leading team. I love snowboarding, wake boarding, volleyball, exercising through Pilates and P90X ... and the only reason why we own a television is to watch ESPN.

7. Married by best friend last September and have enjoyed a wonderful first year together! Feels like so much longer since we're going on six years together :) He makes me a better person every day!

Now to pass this award along ...

Cardigans and Curriculum

Runde's Room

Reading is Thinking

Juice Boxes and Crayolas

My Life as a Fifth Grade Teacher

The Teacher's Lane

Oh' Boy Fourth Grade

Thank you all for your incredible ideas! 

My Life: Reminiscent Gymnast

Putting my old leotard and track suit on for our Halloween costume party got me all sentimental .. .. .so i thought i would take a short jaunt down memory lane and share with you a part of my life that is very dear to my heart. 

Throughout both high school and college, my husband and I were apart of touring acrosport gymnastics/cheer teams - those were the days! We traveled around the US performing all over for functions, fundraisers, festivals, etc My favorite were the public schools where we would promote healthful living and an anti - drug lifestyle. The kids energy was INCREDIBLE! Our teams did a combination between acrosport, cheerleading, gymnastic tumbling, and circus moves (mini tramp, teeterboard, russian bar)

Walk down memory lane ... 

High school Team - Great Lakes Adventist Academy Aerokhanas 

 

 College Team - Andrews University Gymnics

 Tossing pictures can be so ugly since the timing can't be perfect *haha*

Russian Bar - the gentlemen bounce the bar on their shoulders and toss the flier into the air, she does a trick, then lands back on the bar - well, the idea is that they land back on the bar *wink* Yes, that is me on the bar :) 

I am curious, are there any fellow "retired" cheerleaders or gymnasts out there in blog land?? I would love to hear your stories and see your pictures :)

Sequencing

As I am writing this post I am realizing how BEHIND I am with my blogging - I have been faithfully taking pictures of activities yet haven't found the time to post anything! ... and so here I am blogging quickly on my teacher work day ... Sshhhhhhhhh! :)

We are currently learning about "sequencing" in reading ... so here is a sequence of this weeks actives

(notice all the sequencing clue words and phrases *wink* I know I missed a few!) 

As mentioned before, we have been studying "sequencing" in reading.

I started the week off my having the students create sequence story time lines. First I modeled one and we did it as a class, then individually they did it on their own time lines during independent reading time. I definitely had some kids that struggled with this at first and this helped me identify them right away. We discussed how easily we could use these time lines to create a summary.

What does sequencing help a reader to do? (anchor chart)

• Understand what is happening in the story 
• Summarize what the story was about
• Remember what we read

During my guided reading groups (which I am working VERY hard this year to focus more on) each group did sequence activities - example,  in my low group we ordered story event strips correctly with a partner. 

Yesterday, we did one of my favorite lessons. As an intro hook, I read to them "The Butter Battle" by Dr. Seuss (a FAVORITE every year!) and then told them that there was a CORRECT way to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!

 In partners, I have them spread out around the room and list the correct steps to making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. 

NOTE: You will need enough bread for each student to have at least one piece!

After that we meet back on the carpet with me standing behind a table and I begin to create their sandwiches based off of their "sequence lists" Of course, there are always the ones who's sound like this "Step 3: Spread the peanut butter" and the kids reaction is priceless as you begin spreading the peanut butter and jelly in your hand! This is a classic (I still remember my 4th grade teacher doing this to teach us "How to" paragraphs!) but still wonderful!

 This one ^^ was definitely one that got spread on my hand :)

Today, we identified sequence words on an anchor chart, identified them while we read a mentor text (Legend of Sleeping Bear Dunes by  - especially if you live in the Michigan area, this is a MUST read aloud!) and then identified sequence clue words during their independent reading time and list them in their readers notebooks. They also created sequence strips of an activity along with illustrations. I plan on laminating these when they are done, placing them in baggies, trading with a friend, and putting them in the correct sequence. I may just have to snag a few for next year to use during guided reading groups they turned out so darn cute!)
I am happy to say that after a week of sequencing, those struggling with the concept on Monday had it solid by Friday!! *success* 

To finish off this weeks post ... I thought I would share a random activity my partner teacher and I do every year. She does pumpkin math every year ending with the students carving a face in their pumpkins with geometric shapes ... the next day 5th grade participates in the annual "Pumpkin Chuck!" The principal opens the roof access for us and we climb up, pumpkins and all, onto the roof! Our system of getting  the pumpkins up is pretty ghetto and consists of a rope, hook and circular laundry basket :) We then chuck them off the roof to the waiting cheering/yelling/ jumping kiddos below :0)

Totally random, but it is one of the greatest highlights of the season! Our principal comes out every year just to join in the fun! The kids always do a great job of cleaning up all the pumpkin pieces and the day goes on - just with a little extra pizazz :)

Halloween Recap

Here's a quick recount of Friday's Halloween party (always better to have a party on a Friday!) *grin*

Party = SUCCESS!

In the morning, we rotated through out Halloween stations between my partner teacher and I's rooms. We divide both sets of our students into 8 groups and have 4 stations going in each of our rooms.

In my room we had ...
#1 "Creepy Cafe"
Where the kids had to create a "Creepy foods" menu including lots of icky adjectives and pricing
#2 "Spoooky Bags"
 I fill lunch bags with random items and re-name them "Halloween" names:
Silly string = frog intestines
Lacy straw ribbons = "bat wings"
Shaped silly puddy piece= "lizard tongue"
Gak (my partner teacher makes it out of glue) = "snot" NOTE: this one was GROSS feeling! LOVE IT!
Broken pieces of candy corn (a little lame but it worked) = "toe nails"    *need to figure out a better one*

The kids  have to feel them, write 5 adjectives that describe what they are feeling, take a guess at what the item ACTUALLY is and then create a "potion" with the ingredients - if I could figure out this whole document attachment thing I could give you the worksheet I made for this! If your interested in any of my worksheets just shoot me an email!
I monitor this station otherwise the bags get destroyed, plus it eliminates any temptation to peek!

#3 "Sleepy Hollow"
I have this station set up in my reading corner.
We have been studying Legends for our genre in reading, so I incorporate that into this station. The kids read The Legend of Sleepy Hallow (individually) and then create a summary answering who, what, where, when, how, etc. and write it inside of a bat. They than cut it out and tap it in our "graveyard"

NOTE: This is the quietest station - LOVE IT!

#4 "Haunted House"
At this station there are just large sheets of paper with a haunted house outline - this week, in a writing center, we created haunted house advertisements for the Munsters - so in this station they create the inside floor plan of the house they were trying to sell.

After lunch, we did some fall relay activities with pumpkins
We finished the day eating our caramel apples (which was a station in my partner teachers room), drinking cider, and enjoying a movie :)
Over all, we had a WONDERFUL party!

Oh, and the costumes were great! We even got our picture in the local newspaper :) 

I was a gymnast - complete with my old leotard, high school track suit and LOTS of glitter. It was very reminiscent for me ... I MISS IT! Did acrosport/cheer all through high school and College ...

 

Football ... World Series ...{aka Lesson planning ...}

     I realized today that I have been spending a LOT of time in front of the T.V. on Sundays! I am generally not a TV watcher, but during football season especially, Sundays and Monday nights are never quiet in our home! Saturday night Mr. B went to Michigan State vs. Wisconsin Badgers and today he crossed the state and went to the Lions vs. Falcons (he sorta likes football ... I mean, nothing serious ...) With him gone all weekend I was sure that I would get WAY ahead in my planning ...
Problem: lesson planning too often turns into a football watching/blog searching event. *oops*

and so, that is why I find myself in front of the TV - satisfied since my Packers have done what they do best again - watching the WORLD SERIES - blogging - surrounded by my mountain of teacher books - waiting for the MR to come home :)

Highlight from this Week 

The kids finished their Native American pots - they turned out super cute :) 

 

Text Connections

Found this great text connection idea in Mailbox Magazine (great  WONDERFUL magazine for teachers!) last year and pulled it out again because my kids enjoyed it so much. Have the students write down a text connections that they make during their independent reading time on a slip of construction paper, share, and then categorize them into the three text connections. Once categorized, connect them to create paper chains:)  I love the visual "connection" picture that it makes in the kids heads. Since I teach 5th grade, the kids usually come to me knowing these three connections already, but I found this to be a great review lesson and a continual, visual reminder to be making them while we are reading. I modeled this strategy with Young Zeus by Brian Karas since there are so many connections you can make with it and the story is very engaging. We are also currently looking at Traditional Literature so it fit right in!

• Text-to-world connections are easy since so many things in our society today have to do with Greek gods and goddess names (i.e. Poseidon, Hades, Olympus, Zeus, Titans).

• Text-to-self is easy also - in the story he deals with understanding why his mother hasn't been there for his life - why adults aren't able to always do what they want to be doing, and he and his siblings have arguments - both things that many kids can relate with. 

• Text-to-text was fun because this particular group of kids has been VERY interested in Ancient Egyptian, Ancient Roman, Ancient Greek stories (i.e. Percy Jackson) and is we made TONS of connections between what many of them are currently reading and this story.

Sunday Stuff

Football. Yet another great thing about this beautiful Autumn season:)

Currently working on this next weeks lesson plans watching ESPN with my man.

Sunday's consist of football, football, and more football in our home - this year has been a welcome change for my husband, a diehard Lions fan! The game today against the 49er's was a little rough, but we dominated in the game against the Rams (big surprise!) so I'm happy! 6-0 baby!

 Random Sunday classroom stuff:

• Started a WOW wall in my room - the kids seem to enjoy checking it to see if their work made it onto the wall. Working on getting it updated more than once every couple of weeks!

• We started something new this year as an incentive for kids to work on their attendance. Every two weeks, the classroom with the best attendance wins the opportunity to either have a classroom treat or play the staff in a dodge ball tournament. My class won the very first best attendance of the year and needless to say, they chose to play the staff in dodge ball - it was epic. We won, of course (wink). They were short games and the whole ordeal only lasted about 20 minutes at the end of the day; the whole school was there and cheering - there was so much energy! Sadly, my kids struggle with good sportsmanship (the PE teacher has spoken to me about this already) and so the dynamic was lessened since I had to address some of their unsportsmanlike behavior in front of the whole school. But overall it went well, I hope that it helped them understand the importance of good sportsmanship.

Native Americans

So I stayed up SUPER late Wednesday night making bowls and bowls of salt dough - 50 kids worth! (recipe = 1 cup of salt to 2 cups of flour - add water till moldable) Thursday we created Native American pinch pots, coil pots, and totem poles to go with our Native American Unit. Next year, I will definitely order some real clay, but for the most part, this seemed to have worked pretty well. It was kind of a last minute idea - most of mine are recently! I took them home and baked them (200 degrees) and we painted them on Friday -they turned out AMAZING :)

 We're also started our Native American pocket notebooks to store all of our stories, writings, artifacts, pictures throughout this unit.

Again, the kids were totally geeked! They are Kings and Queens of coloring - which always makes their end projects look so AMAZING! I absolutely thrive on their passion and excitement over every activity we do together!
I checked out different Native American Legends from the library and am Super excited to use Cardigans and Curriculum's Native American Legends Idea! It is awesome and definitely worth checking out if you teach Native Americans - does a great job of using cross curriculum connections!

Off to an inter mural football game at my Alma Mater ... YAY EXERCISE!

Note: Please be aware that that as a social studies educator, my purpose is to get students excited about learning other cultures as well as their own. I am not perfect in my education of this, though I do try and do a lot of research before teachings cultures and history. Concerning the dioramas, I try to educate students on the breaking of stereotypes and regional uniquness as much as possible from my findings and research but do not claim to be an expert. By using tangible items it help spur students passion for the cultures and history we study and creates in them a desire to learn and discover more. If there is something that bothers you or have questions on my instruction concerning your culture or any other topic I may teach in my room, please feel free to email me personally to help me gain more understanding. I love learning about others and am always striving to educate my students better.

Just a Few of my Fun, Fall, Favorites!

^ *hehe* I love alliteration! ^

      Although, I will be very sad the day I can no longer wear my summer skirts and sandals, I LOVE FALL! 

It has to be one of the coziest times of the year (besides for Christmas, which I think beats all seasons and holidays for me!). But seriously, I love all those "Fally" things - apple cider, hayrides, pumpkins, chilly enough for a light jacket but warm enough to go for a walk kind of evenings, beautiful fall colors ... mmmm ... I don't think I could ever live somewhere that didn't have the seasons!

      So, since it has been MEAP testing week, and their poor brains need a break after the tests, I have been having a great time doing lots of FALL activities with my kiddos!

My partner teacher and I took our kids out one gorgeous afternoon and burned our initials into leaves with magnifying glasses - A HUGE HIT!

I had my kids create Pumpkin RAFTS, a great idea from Caffeinated Conclusions. 

R (role) = Pumpkin

A (audience) = kids 

F (format) = letter 

T = 1. Please do NOT carve me! 

       2. Please DO carve me! 

Strong Words = 1. Annihilate 

                          2. Creation

These turned out AMAZING - I was very impressed with their creativity - I am currently teaching narrative and this was persuasive, but they did relatively well even in their persuasion considering we haven't gone over it yet. 

We created seasonal poems - poems that tell us how the season arrives 

I would share the worksheets and poem layout, however I still haven't figured out the whole attaching documents ordeal ... darn. 

They turned out really cute however! 

We had already done leaf rubbings the day before so we put them with our poems 

I just LOVE these kids, they get so GEEKED about everything! It is so refreshing after last year when nothing was cool ...

Excuses ...

Last year, I did not allow myself to blog, even though I was dying to ... but with balancing my time between my first year and my poor, newly, married husband, I did not have ANY time (I do NOT know how some of your first year blogger did it! PROPS!). With this being my second year, I have indulged in participating in the creative and inspiring world of blogging! I the second year, everyone told me,  you will have SO much more time ... Who ARE these people?!?!?! It is easier, calmer, actually ENJOYABLE even (grin) but time???? I don't think I will ever have time to do everything I want to do with my kiddos! And so, here it is, a month into my blogging year and I am already AWOL. But, like every good student ... I have my excuses....

1. Not having the internet on my lap top is KILLING me! It stopped working a couple weeks ago and I am dying without it. I've been staying SUPER late at school (yes, what good teacher doesn't already stay pretty late! I swear I live in this ROOM!) getting last minute planning ideas, email catch ups, and blog snooping :0) This has definitely put a pause on my personal blogging, especially since I can't share any of my pix without my camera cord (which of course I forget EVERY morning!). GEEZ.

 2. The weather has been absolutely BEAUTIFUL! I LOVE fall! The colors are changing and it has been surprisingly warm. You will find me outside most evenings walking around our little town or playing girls inter mural soccer at my Alma Mater (Andrews University). I am SO thankful for this exercise - something that was also placed on the back burner last year! I am very excited because football season starts next week! 

3. MEAP testing is next week and it has been about the only thing on my mind! We have been doing hardcore 4th grade ELA review...busy, busy, busy!

With these silly excuses, I still have been diligently keeping track of all of your blogs! I have gotten AMAZING ideas from some of you and am excited to share them :) One of these days I just might!

Until then, I hope everyone is enjoying this wonderful fall season! 

If you live in Michigan ... GO OUTSIDE! 

Homecoming, Football, and Satisfaction

I LOVE football (huge Packers Fan!) and so I am very excited that our school does something special for Homecoming, even though our little guys still have quite a ways until that life experience :) My partner teacher and I set up a fun filled, football day for our kids this last Friday. First, the kids already come to school decked out in Spirit Wear - Purple and White was EVERYWHERE! We combined our classes into 6 groups. In the morning, we each took 3 groups - she did tail gating games and I did football relays and friendly competitions. I had made these cute little paper trophies to give to the winners ("best catch", "farthest throw", "longest Kick", Etc.) The kids REALLY got in to the games! Then we came in for our whole school Pep Rally and the high school football team showed up with the cheerleaders, part of the band, and Willie the Wildcat mascot to hype the kids up for the game tonight! What a great time - brought back high school memories! What would a football party be without hot dogs? After the pep rally we had a "tailgate" snack (which our parents so wonderfully provided for!). Then we switched to do stations in our own classrooms. I had three stations for the kids to rotate through. 

 

#1 = Football Vocabulary Writing Activity

The kids had to use at least 5 of the football vocabulary to write a "small moment" during a football game (we have been studying Lucy Caulkins "Watermelon vs little Seed   

                                                                 topics") 

#2 = Football Math

Here I just had some fun football problem solving worksheets - nothing fancy, but the kids liked them 

#3 = Create a football Pennant 

The kids made pennants for our football team - the WILDCATS! They turned out really cute, except our colors are purple and white so I think I will have to go and buy some more purple markers, we ran all of them dry! :) 

In my partner teachers room, she did math problem solving stations around the room about football as well, she also had the kids decorate big banners in the hallway that we carry in the parade every year, and she had them play table football with this adorable table football rug and goal posts. 

We were both completely SHOCKED at how well behaved these kids were during our stations. Generally, on celebration day the kids are so hyped and excited that these can often become noisy. But my kids this year are AMAZING - I put some music on (sports themed of course!) told them to work in level 1 whisper voices ... and that was that - a perfect afternoon! 

After school we have the homecoming parade through town and any of our kids are welcome to come walk in it with us, then we head off to the game - which sadly we lost - but it was a wonderful homecoming! 

To end a great Football Weekend, I headed over and watched a few of my boys Rocket Football Game - not only did I get to see the couple boys from my class this year who are on the team, but I also got to see a few from last years class :) They were so excited! I felt so good. What a great weekend! 

Do any of you celebrate homecoming at your schools? If so, do you have any neat ideas??

Mary Poppins - the bag lady!

I am linking up with The Inspired Apple's Teacher Bag Link Party! I love taking a peek into other teacher's bags and feeling better about my own accumulation of bags both at home and at school :)   
     With it being the weekend, my bags are fairly empty since I try to only bring my plans home to get done and leave activity planning to week day evenings. Otherwise, the insides of my bags would probably be a bit more full of RANDOM crap for lessons and activities (and I will probably add a couple of bags come Monday).

      I love my day-to-day Vera Bradley teacher bag, however I also adore reusable bags to carry all the other tidbits I drag between home and school (there are seriously some days where I have three of these on top of my teacher bag!). I always end up with a ton of writing utensils that range from highlighters and pens to my favorite purple felt tipped markers (of which I am currently carrying 3!) Other items include burts bees chap stick (essential for the coming season!), my writer's notebook - which I try and take home to write in every night to model writing for my students, my lesson plan binder, adorable Dr. Seuss bookmarks I got for my kiddos, Lucy Caulkin's writer's workshop mini-lesson book for weekend planning along with some social studies lapbook cutout books, sweet pumpkin garlands that I got at the dollar store Friday afternoon, cell phone - duel purpose = watch, my Sigg water bottle, lotion, robot stickers :), my keys and VB wallet, lots of extra bobby pins and hair ties for fly-aways and emergency up-do's! scotch tape, scissors, travel mug (for my morning chi lattes), and a sweater - since I always seem to get cold!


Teacher bags are simply Mary Poppin bags - stuffed to the brim with teacher essentials, treats, and surprises! This may have to be the next bag that is added to my growing collection *grin*

Constitution Day

       In honor of Constitution Day, our whole school dressed in Red, White, and Blue! I love dressing up - here was my "patriotic outfit" *grin*

     Since US Government is a 5th grade benchmark I planned our Social Studies lesson on the US Constitution to fall on Constitution Day. We have been learning about how the Constitution is like the "Play Manual" (connections to Video games and computers help with this new generation!) for all the laws and rules that are made in our Country. I also found a NEAT comic book blog (The Fourth of July Project) that compared the Constitution to a "Hulk-like" Superhero character.

The idea is that the Constitution creates a powerful federal government that rules our country effectively, HOWEVER, our Founding Fathers (wise men that they were!) realized that they may have created too powerful a government (a monster!) that had the possibility of  going rouge (like many governments we see today!) ... and so, as every good super hero story goes, they added a Side Kick, The Bill of Rights.

    The first 10 amendments (Bill of Rights) protect our rights as PEOPLE so that government can never become so powerful it takes away the fundamental RIGHTS of all men and women. I understood this difficult concept better with this funny analogy and boy did my kids understand this! IT WAS EXCITING!
Then we watched an AMAZING movie produced by Discovery Education Streaming that shows students what life would be like if we did NOT have the Bill of Rights (watch for a couple places where there are some inappropriate language - you would THINK that an educational video for kids wouldn't have any but these days ...ugh) Here is the link for the video - Bill of Rights Fright
We then partnered up and created posters identifying each of the 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights. These turned out really cool too!

I really feel like these lessons helped the kids connect with the Constitution and the Bill or Rights - both of which are very DIFFICULT concepts for kids to understand. SUCCESS!

Branches of Government

  Today, we learned about the branches of government. After a brief power point/handout fill in session, we headed outside to collect sticks to make our Branches of Government Mobiles! (a GREAT idea taken from one of the Scholastic Teachers, Angela Bunyi)
They turned out SO CUTE! Students could work alone or in pairs to create their mobile. I now have LOTS of them hanging from my ceiling :)